I've been working with rails (of and on) for about 2 years now. I still feel like I don't know a whole lot but I love learning and working with rails. My main experience has been going through the entire Michael Hartl course, going through the Code School courses (which I'm doing right now. Originally started with their original Rails for Zombies about 2 years ago), and working on little projects of my own. My ideal position would be working remotely in a "Junior" rails developer position. I don't have anything on my github repo (all my projects I've worked on are private on BitBucket and most of them aren't complete projects or anything I'd really be proud to share). I don't like my job right now (Tech Support) because it pays peanuts and it's really stressful for me. Dealing with (to put it nicely) less than capable, rude, ignorant people for at least 8 hours a day in a dead end job REALLY depresses me.

I try to wake up early before work every morning to either go through the course I'm in the middle of in Code School, look up resources on rails (usually in this subredit) or work on my project I'm in the middle of and do the same after work and on weekends (for the most part).

I know "the grass is always greener..." but I feel that my dream job would be working as an official rails developer where I could make enough to live comfortably ($50k/year would be absolute freakin paradise for me right now as I'd be able to get my own place and support myself very comfortably) and be excited to wake up every day and work in a field I'm passionate about.

Sorry for going on a rant. If you'd made it this far, I would REALLY appreciate ANY help or insight on what I should do in order to secure the job that I so desperately want right now!

If you are in a city with any sort of tech community, go out and meet people.

I've been using Rails for 2 months, and I'm getting paid to do a free-lance gig that I went and asked about, after forming a relationship with the CTO of a small start-up over the course of a couple of months. It feels crazy because I'm so new to Ruby/Rails, but I do have 2+ years with Django/Python, so it's not like this is my first programming gig.

Also, get your code on Github. Not proud of it? Well something is better then nothing. You have to show people you are a maker, and if your code could be better, then make it better. Not sure how? Search StackOverflow.com and ask questions if you don't find answers after searching.

But seriously, don't just use the internet. Go out and actually meet people. Anyone, young, old, regardless of what Language/Framework they use, just be around other programmers and web developers. If for no other reason, think of it as practice interviews for the jobs you should be applying for as frequently as possible, based on your description of your current gig.

Really great insight. That's awesome you landed a gig within just 2 months of being a rails dev! I've really wanted to surround myself with people as passionate about development as I am but I've found that difficult as well. My full time job really sucks it out of me and I find it really hard sometimes to find the motivation to do anything (which is no one's fault but my own). I've tried to explore meetup.com but didn't find anything really relevant (or so I thought). I live in Phoenix, AZ so I'm sure it's possible to get together with people like me, I'm just not sure how to do it. My main focus has been trying to replace my current full time job.

I've been torn between trying to get my current app that I'm working on right now to production and go after making that lucrative enough to live off of or just trying to better my Rails skills so I can better my chances to work for someone and make a decent living. Today I decided to reach out to you guys about entry level positions that may be more feasible for me to get and are less intimidating. If I can replace the job I'm not happy with with something I'd LOVE doing and be able to make enough money to support myself, I'd be stoked out of my mind (as I'm sure most people would be haha). That's the level I want to get to because I feel so strongly that once I do, I'll be unstoppable.

When you go, remember you are on a mission. You must meet at least 3 people -- not just hi, my name is ... find out who they are and what they are passionate about. Get contact info. Take notes on the presentation.

Practice your elevator pitch (in less then 2 minutes, explain who you are and what you are passionate about). Tell people about the app you are working on. Be confident. Even if it's not perfect, if you act like it's not very good, no one is going to listen. If it could be better, talk about whatever challenges you've had with the programming.

Final critical tip: Do NOT bad-mouth your current gig. I don't care if your boss is Satan and your desk sits atop a bed of flaming coals. No one wants to work with a complainer.

Going off of all this (all good information), please get that contact info. My first Rails gig was via Twitter - I networked with a couple people and met some Rails folks exclusively online. The fact that I kept in communication regularly and was pretty actively tweeting about writing code and pushing code to GitHub (and believe me, it was the Hartl tutorial, nothing crazy) was enough to get me in with a local company. While it sounds lame to say "FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER", if you have a business card with your Twitter username on it that should do just fine.

Good point. I don't use Twitter very often but I do follow some developers on there and do find a lot of tid bits when I peruse. I'll be more active on Twitter because you're not the first one I've heard get a gig from networking on there.

I'm trying to get a good feel (for myself and for anyone else who is interested) on what rails devs ACTUALLY make. Did you go into your current job only have the experience of the Michael Hartl tutorial under your belt? If you don't mind me asking, how much are you making? Is it all in an office M-F?

I went in after finishing the Hartl tutorial and working on a couple client projects (really simple Rails apps, nothing more than basic CRUD). I had a pretty good collection of projects on GitHub - it wasn't amazing code but what was important was that I was eager: I was starring projects and trying to help close issues on Rails.

As for $$$, I was getting paid hourly as an intern... not a ton of money but enough to live on. Second job as an engineer at a bigger company, the salary is a bit nicer :)

Don't focus on the fact that Pr0ducer got a job with 2 months of Rails experience. The take-away here is that they also have more experience as a dev, period. I'm not sure what your programming experience is, but be sure to highlight that, rather than your Ruby/Rails experience. If your basics are sound, you can always learn the language/framework on the job.

What's the protocol for someone new to meetups? Just RSVP and showup, walk around solo introducing yourself to people?

Basically. Usually, there's either a discussion group or a presentation with Q&A. Sometimes you order pizza or go out for beers afterwards, depends on the group. Take your laptop if you can, a notebook if you can't.

I can tell you all about the Ruby::AZ meetup. It is hosted where I work!! In fact next month we are going to invite employers in to pitch themselves. I have hired 4 people that I met at the Ruby::AZ group so it is quite common. There is also a google group/mailing list at:

Hey Bob! I actually went to the meetup the other night. It was awesome! You were the one with glasses on drinking a beer right before it started right? I actually emailed you last month when I first discovered Ruby::AZ asking for a Job (My name is Cameron). I tried to go up and say hey but it seemed every time I wasn't chit chatting myself you were! That's ok though, I'm sure I'll catch ya at the next one!

Thank you soo much for letting us all meet there. My first impression on everything was AWESOME! I definitely felt right at home (other than everyone in the room being significantly more talented than myself and having Macbooks haha).

Oh and I'm REALLY excited about the next meetup, having employers show up and being able to network with them is going to be pretty sweet. I'm in the process of launching a blog right now to use as a platform to show my knowledge, skills, growth, etc. with development. I'll definitely have to have it done by next month. I've become hungrier and hungrier to secure a position at a company that would best suite me and vice versa so hopefully it'll finally happen next meetup!

Keep doing what you're doing for a start. Personal projects, especially something that you really want to make - are great for learning.

Build up some reputation on StackOverflow. I think some people will disagree with me, but I have heard that some employers actually look for this. Even if not, a small amount of reputation gives you access to StackOverflow careers which is an incredible resource.

Someone else said this, but meetups. Not just meetup.com, anything you can find. Meetups in hackerspaces, local uni meetups, anything. I was offered small jobs with virtually no experience just because I was there.

The big one, in my mind, is be willing to move. I know you said you would like to work remotely - and it's possible, for sure, but for a first job, be open to anything. The other side of this is that when you're willing to move, your job search REALLY opens up. If you're just looking in your current city, you're pretty limited - whatever is in the ads currently is what you've got to go with. But even if you just pick two other cities - imagine how many more potential jobs there are. If you open your search up to the whole country (or the world?) you'll have a job in no time :)

Source: Started learning ruby with practically no dev xp (I studied networking/telecom in uni) in the beginning of 2013. At that time I was an English teacher and wanted to make an application for building progress reports for students. That Spring I met a girl, one thing led to another and at the end of October I moved to Germany. The whole summer I had been eating, sleeping and crying ruby and rails, trying to make this app (and it's a stinker, but it helped me learn!) When I got here, I searched hard, sending cv's to anyone and everyone and joining in on any meetups I could find. I did some interviews and ended up with a job within two weeks.

Generally, I think you're on the right track to teaching yourself. Keep it up. It's frustrating and shitty for a long time, but suddenly it clicks and the world opens up. My notes on your post:

My ideal position would be working remotely in a "Junior" rails developer position.

Where do you live? Is there a specific reason you're looking for a remote position? Are you willing to move?

Personally, I'd be reluctant (but not opposed) to hiring a junior remote dev, simply because there are so many issues that newbies have that are easier to work through in person. It's not unheard of, and companies that are already set up for distributed workers are probably your best bet.

I don't have anything on my github repo (all my projects I've worked on are private on BitBucket and most of them aren't complete projects or anything I'd really be proud to share).

Don't do this. Even the projects you're embarrassed of will show potential employers that (a) you know how to use git / github, and (b) you're interested in learning. In my opinion, even if it's just 3 commits worth of code you wrote while learning a new gem, it's worth putting out there as a public repo.

Whenever I'm doing an interview, I always look at the person's Github account: not because it's required that they have one, but because it gives me a guaranteed starting place for conversation.

The big thing is, name your repo well, or document it in the readme, so people know why you created "yet another half-done Rails app." Whether you're doing something as long-running as Hartl's tutorial or as quick as experimenting with Nokogiri.

I know "the grass is always greener..."

In this case, it is. Support sucks, I'm sorry. Is there room in your current organization for advancement?
If you like programming, maybe broaden your search to find software shops in the area that aren't necessarily Rails-focused. Python, JavaScript, and PHP all have frameworks that will feel very similar to Rails. Java and .NET really aren't so bad, either.

Last, the advice about joining your local Ruby (or anything web-related!) meetup is probably the best advice in the thread. Join a meetup, ask questions, find a local group to talk to about the toys they're playing with, and show off the toys you're playing with.

I REALLY like the idea of being able to work when/where I am most comfortable. I took a few months off recently to pursue building my own business (trying to build a client base of web design clients) and loved being able to make my own hours. It's the happiest I've been (aside from not being able to get paying clients) in my adult life. I feel more productive working this way, and happier overall as I'm in control of when/where I work.

Don't do this. Even the projects you're embarrassed of will show potential employers that (a) you know how to use git / github, and (b) you're interested in learning. In my opinion, even if it's just 3 commits worth of code you wrote while learning a new gem, it's worth putting out there as a public repo.

I wrote a blog application in rails that I have on my private bitbucket account, I'll push it to my GitHub account and reference that in this job that I'm applying for right now. It's an entry level position for a company where most of the employee's work remotely from all over the country (sounds perfect for what I want). It sounds like you've hired people before and/or know the field. What do you think I could expect them to offer me as far as salary goes? That is, if I get a response from applying. How can I make a good impression? Their emphasis is on a beginner who either has experience in rails or experience with another programming language. I have both.

meetup is probably the best advice in the thread.

I didn't see the Ruby meetup in my area that xionon found, I'm pretty excited about that. I've never been to a meetup though, this may be a stupid question but do I just RSVP and show up? haha

This current position that I found has me incredibly excited. The thought of being able to make more money and not be in the help desk support filed for once (Those have been all my real paying jobs other than freelance work) gets me really excited!

In Chicago, you'd probably make somewhere in the 60s. Dunno about remote.

$60k/year would be about 3x what I'm making right now... It would blow my mind if I could get paid that much to be on fire and to have a job I'd finally be proud of!

That's me!

Duhh! I can't believe I missed that haha, thank you so much for finding the meetups and giving such great insight. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!

There are more like it. Don't give up if you don't get this one!

I definitely won't give up, although this position sounds perfect for me. I wish I would have started looking for "junior" or "entry level" positions a year ago! I guess I just thought you had to know A TON to get paid to be a rails dev.

i'd get at least one full rails project up...something well refactored with good test coverage, evidence of design patterns, definitely some fancy looking javascript/css on the front end if not a bit of backbone or angular because no matter how cool your backend is, if the frontend looks unstyled the app just doesn't seem as professional. Be able to explain any part of the code, talk about what you liked about it and what was challenging, etc. etc. Typical interview questions, just instead of previous job it's previous code. It's also good to maybe post some smaller projects, terminal games like chess or minesweeper are cool, or even just implementing data structures or algorithms in ruby is impressive because most people don't build linked lists in ruby and stuff. DFS, BFS, trees...

Learn the agile keywords...sprint scrum etc.

It's always good to have twitter/linkedin/a website with a personal url (it's like 10$ a year and makes you standout infinitely more compared to .github.io). Follow some rails people, retweet stuff, post links to articles or what have you. Show interest and passion.

Also: apply everywhere. It took me ~250 applications for my first job and i'm in the bay area.

It can get frustrating that's for sure. I feel like I should know more than I do because I've been tinkering with Rails for so long.

Collaborating on a team would be awesome! I PM'd you, just messing around on a sample project would be pretty sweet and would help add to my GitHub repo (which is apparently more important for getting a job than I thought!)

I have been teaching my self to code for about 2 years+ now using plural sight, codecademy, code school, and others. Learn a lot of different languages - C++, Objective-C, Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, ruby... pretty much anything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately the least of which I studied on was ruby. BUT... I start my job as a ruby dev on tuesday next week! I think I found the one job in my area that didn't care that I didn't know a ton and was willing to work with me to learn more as I grow into the position. Wish me luck.

Congrats! That inspires me to be able to do the same thing! If you don't mind me asking, what are they paying you? Sorry if that's too personal, I'm just trying to get a good feel as to how much I may have a chance of making in a similar position. Is the company a startup?

I have worked for the state for years and our salaries have always been public knowledge. So I don't mind. $65,000 with equity options in the company. I live in Arkansas as well so adjust for your area. I also have a Associates degree and 9 years of enterprise IT support, network, and server experience.

Alright everyone, I just applied for a Junior Rails Developer position. I spent a lot of time trying to make my resume look good as well as drafting a cover letter that conveyed my passion to the best of my ability. Hopefully I'll hear something back this year! I don't know much about the position other than it's remote and entry level. I keep this thread posted with any news! I really appreciate everyone's insight and help! If I get this position or one comparable it would radically change my life in so many positive ways, I can't begin to tell you guys how stoked I am at the thought of working as a rails dev professionally! :D

Also! Have you considered one of the programming short-term training programs, like DevBootCamp? It's expensive, difficult, and exhausting, but many of them are very worth it. A coworker in basically your position went through the DevBootCamp in Chicago, and had a job offer a couple weeks after graduation.

It's definitely buyer beware, though - since there's no standard accreditation process, you'll want to research them pretty heavily before investing. Make sure you find and talk to alumni, research their actual job placement rate, compare curriculums, factor in cost-of-living, etc.

Sorry if I'm spamming the thread, I like trying to help aspiring developers, especially if they're trying to get out of a bad current job. And anyway, more programmers = more work and opportunities for all of us :-)

Have you considered one of the programming short-term training programs, like DevBootCamp?

I have considered them, however because they're so expensive and I can't afford to take time off to attend one it's pretty much out of the question for me at this point. I have heard a lot of bad things as well as good about them though.

Sorry if I'm spamming the thread, I like trying to help aspiring developers

You are definitely NOT spamming. I REALLY appreciate the input you've given. The feedback and response I've gotten has strengthened my faith EVEN MORE in the rails community! I've had one bad job after the other (I really don't mean to complain, I'm sorry if it comes off like that) so I feel like I have paid enough dues to at least get a job I can legitimately support myself off of. The fact that I'd love what I'd be doing would just be a total bonus!

I'm doing DevBootcamp at the moment - I'm in the middle of 'phase 0', which is basically a remote prep phase to ensure that everyone has a good foundational knowledge level of HTML, CSS, JS, SQL and Ruby before we start.

Even though it's currently remote, I've found it to be an incredibly motivating and rewarding experience so far: they're piling on the work already and giving us a lot of support, as well as requiring us to pair program multiple times per week.

However, I understand it can be very expensive and it's not possible for everyone - next to a bootcamp, I'd probably rank The Odin Project as the best tool for learning programming and web development: I did it very part-time for about 1-2 months before starting DBC, and learned a huge amount. It's basically an organization of the huge amounts of online learning materials into a single structured syllabus. It starts off very straightforward with basic HTML, CSS and Javascript, but soon gets into Ruby, Rails, rspec, algorithms, data structures etc.

The thing I most like about it is that each learning module is followed by a solo project which would look great on your portfolio. For example, just before DBC I completed a project where I built a Hangman game in ruby complete with savegames and an unbeatable AI opponent (later projects include building a complete chess game in ruby, creating your own CSS framework, building a photo-tagging app in JS, and building a Facebook clone in rails).

You may want to do some projects on the various freelancing sites (eLance, Freelancer.com, etc). The pay won't always be great, but it will allow you to build experience and a portfolio. This will start your foundation for being able to get a junior level position (local or remote).

I've tried to get jobs on both Freelancer and Elance but haven't gotten any luck. I feel like there is way too much competition with people in India that will do a project for 1/4 of what I'd have to charge just to be able to afford to allocate time to take on the project. The "Rails" category seems to be less crowded but still haven't had any luck. I don't really blame anyone for not hiring me because I have no reviews but it's a catch 22. I haven't figured out how to get around that. Do you have any experience with this?